Arizona’s attorney general is proposing making one school staffer with exceptionally good aim the heat-packing point person for emergency school security.

Tom Horne said on CNN that he believes blanket proposals to let teachers bring guns to school “would create more dangers than it would solve.”

On the other hand, he said, schools would regret not doing anything in the wake of Newtown.

“So, my proposal is to designate one person, the principal or someone he designates and then we’re offering to give him training in marksmanship, in judgment, when to shoot, when not to shoot, how to secure the gun in a locked, safe place, to give intensive training,” Horne said. “And I’ve offered to give that training for free to the schools. One person, the principal or someone he designates and so that there will be one person on campus trained, able to deal with a situation if it arises.”

That might expand if the one-person-per-campus training goes well, he said.

“I’ve got 36 investigators who are sworn police officers. Three sheriffs have agreed to participate. I’m expecting more sheriffs to participate. So, depending on how many we can train, we’re offering to do this for free, you know, we could have substitutes in the schools prepared to do this as well,” Horne said.

The CNN host countered that there “doesn’t seem to be evidence” arming people at schools would prevent a massacre.

“No, it doesn’t necessarily and, obviously, there’s no perfect solution. But it would be a shame if somebody went into a school and started shooting people and shot a lot of people over a continuous period of time if that person could’ve been stopped by somebody with a gun and a gun and who was trained how to use it,” Horne responded. “That would be a terrible tragedy and I don’t want to have a tragedy occur where everybody regrets that we didn’t do something when we could’ve done something.”

The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers issued a joint statement opposing arming any teachers, arguing that schools should be “sanctuaries, not armed fortresses.”

“We would like them to be safe sanctuaries, but we found out that sometimes a bad guy can penetrate and you want someone who can deal with it in that case,” Horne said. “Now, I’m not requiring anything of anybody. If they don’t want it, they don’t have to have it. But if they do want it, I’m offering this as a free service that we will provide to the schools.”

Bridget Johnson is a veteran journalist whose news articles and opinion columns have run in dozens of news outlets across the globe. Bridget first came to Washington to be online editor at The Hill, where she wrote The World from The Hill column on foreign policy. Previously she was an opinion writer and editorial board member at the Rocky Mountain News and nation/world news columnist at the Los Angeles Daily News.
She is an NPR contributor and has contributed to USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, National Review Online, Politico and more, and has myriad television and radio credits as a commentator. Bridget is Washington Editor for PJ Media.

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1.
heathermc

“The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers issued a joint statement opposing arming any teachers, arguing that schools should be “sanctuaries, not armed fortresses.”

Sanctuaries. A word that sounds so nice, so creamy, like the best most expensive chocolate. A word that only fools would think solve any of the problems faced by ‘gun free zones’. But reality is so darned mean, so not-nice, so ignorant and down market.

It’s almost as if they have neglected to consider the image of fortified isolation that the word “sanctuary” evokes. Shangri-La was a “sanctuary” because it was remote, far-removed, and almost unreachable. The security and safety offered by a “sanctuary” is a factor of something that isolates and protects it from the outside world, either a physical protection or a traditional/cultural one. Without the latter, one must look to the former.

IIRC, “sanctuary” was originally a religious term. It applied to the “Holy of Holies” in the Temple in Jerusalem. Anyone who could reach it was untouchable by feud or lawful seizure for a set period of time, because the sanctity of the sanctuary put the individual under the laws, and mercy, of god, not man. In attempting to substitute academia for religion, it is not too odd that academicians would desire to claim the same cultural rights for their most loved place “for the children”, as that which Judeo-Christian religious culture claimed.

It is amusingly odd, that in desiring this, the academicians have done as much as anything else to expose their fallacy, that material existence is all there is. For if the academy is to claim the sanctity that truly makes a sanctuary, then there must be some subtler level of law going on than that which a legislature can enact. One could only wish that religions were better at expounding that. It is needed, since academia continues to deny it exists, while still trying to claim “sanctuary”.

The Second Amendment is there in part because in the days before police forces, the citizens provided authority with the force it needed. This is thus not some new concept, but a return to a tradition hundreds, maybe millennia, old. And even today, the police can not be everywhere at once–and they can be nowhere instantly.

The militia has a proud tradition in our Anglo-American heritage, beyond that of warfare, and we should not turn our backs on it lightly. In America–or at least part of it–the operating principle is that both by right and by result we trust the people so much that we allow them to exercise freedoms (theirs by right anyway) that in most other times and lands would have been the prerogatives of the ruling hierarchy alone.

Or, that is, we *used* to trust the people. By and large, the elites no longer do, but, then, perhaps we will get new elites someday.

Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook were sanctuaries, where insane gunmen killed 32 and 26 innocent people, respectively. Gun free zones allow shooters to kill without interference. Teachers should be required to take a course in logic.

The National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers issued a joint statement opposing arming any teachers, arguing that schools should be “sanctuaries, not armed fortresses.”

What’s with the NEA and AFT wanting to turn schools into churches and temples? Don’t they believe in not having government established religion? Oh wait, they just mean schools should be places of refuge fortified by laws, i.e., fortresses. But that didn’t work on it’s own, so they’ve erected a myriad of other protocols to enhance their fortification. So, schools are already fortresses, just unarmed ones (in most cases).

And that doesn’t work to the extent we want it to, or we wouldn’t be having this discussion, would we?

The officials who wrote and approved this joint statement should have consulted with some of their members who have expertise in history before settling on these inane analogies. Neither sanctuaries nor fortresses will stop attacks by those intent on wreaking havoc there. What we must do is face reality and prepare for these eventualities in the best manner possible.

This proposal is a piece of infuriating Bullsh-t. This is what happens when conservatives try to pander… They basically just throw away half their brain in an attempt to look good to their political opponents…

Don’t tell me that your ‘one armed teacher’ will never have to take a leak, take a day off, or take care of a sick child at home. Or take a lunch break in some far away corner of the bldg (what happened at Columbine, from what I’ve heard)…

At least two armed personell should be mandatory. Let it be the f-cking janitor for all we care (esp. if said janitor is long-standing employee in good standing with previous experience and a license who volunteers for said duty…)

Firstly, it’s my understanding that the school President Obama and many of his cronies send their kids to has eleven armed guards on campus. Safety for mine but not for thine much?
Secondly, here’s a simple proposal. Any teacher who wishes to may volunteer to take on the additional role of school defense marshall, similar in concept and intent to that of air marshall on planes. They would receive adequate weapons training and periodic psychological review to ensure only stable personalities remained in the program. I’d add a rule that all firearms must be carried on your person at all times to avoid the gun in the purse or drawer issue entirely.
Would this prevent a school shooting? Of course not, but it would effectively put first responders on site, not minutes away. I have seen credible data that in public shootings where the perpetrator is stopped by law enforcement the average body count is 14. Where an armed citizen is already present the count is 2.4.